194 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [N. s., 22, 1920
migratory animal which cannot be kept in parks or enclosures" is un- proved. For at least twelve years I have observed a couple of reindeer in a zoological garden, and they were perfectly happy and content there. The reindeer of the Soyot is not at all migratory, but during the summer the herds constantly remain in the forest in the proximity of human habitations (after Olsen, in my article, p. 127). When in the summer of 1898 I resided in the settlement Wai among the Ewunki Tungus on the northeast coast of Saghalin island, the reindeer herds of this tribe were kept in confinement on a small isle hardly two miles square, which they were unable to leave; they were held there in a perfect enclosure formed by water. Any park or enclosure may certainly be large enough to allow an animal to yield to its migratory habit. Giles Fletcher (Of the Russe Common Wealth, London, 1591, ed. of E. A. Bond, 1856, p. 101), in his description of the life of the Lapp, states, "Their travaile to and fro is upon sleds, drawen by the Olen deer; which they use to turne a grasing all the sommer time in an iland called Kilden (of a very good soile compared with other partes of that countrie), and towards the winter time, when the snow beginneth to fall, they fetch them home again for the use of their sledde."
We do not read more from or into our documents than is warranted by their contents, and Ohthere does not say a word about the Lapp tending his herds. There is as yet no proof for the allegation that the Lapp of the ninth century were reindeer nomads. Frijs says advisedly, "The Lapp in the north of Scandinavia during the ninth century were still fishermen and .hunters, and were only acquainted with reindeer as game, while they did not yet possess tame animals" (C. Keller, Naturgeschichte der Haustiere, p. 200). Dr. Hatt objects to this statement that our forefathers "were not ethnographers"; but this is no argument. The interpretation of reindeer into the harts put to the cart of Hotherus (p. 125) is not safe: the tale of Saxo is legendary, not historical. Also the Romans and Chinese harnessed stags to carriages (see my article, pp. 132, 133), and no one would think of claiming that these were tamed reindeer. In the opinion of the best philologists of our time, particularly those of France, no historical facts should be deduced from the status of loan-words and other linguistic phenomena (against Hatt, p. 128); if this is done, however, the conclusion will always remain an hypothesis, but will never rise into a fact. That Hatt, after offering not a single piece of tangible evidence, should advance the assertion, "That reindeer nomadism existed in Scandinavia in the ninth century, and even some- what earlier, may accordingly be regarded not as a mere hypothesis,
�� �
